


a sinuous story

by fmo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Snake Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 11:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: "Oh, if Crowley could wear a human form to be with Aziraphale, what would he do then? To Crowley’s utter shame, he had spent many centuries’ warm afternoons fantasizing about what it would be like to simply sit in a chair across a table from Aziraphale in a restaurant and have dinner with him properly, as two equally participating people. He had imagined himself sitting next to Aziraphale on a park bench and feeding the ducks with him as two men having a conversation instead of one man with a large scarf. Crowley had even, in his deepest heart of snakey hearts, dreamed about holding Aziraphale’s hand with a human hand instead of with coils of snake."Or: Due to personal problems with the demon in charge of issuing corporations, Crowley has always been a snake, and only a snake. Until the not-apocalypse happens, and Adam fixes everything.["Sinuous" in Merriam-Webster: a) having a serpentine or wavy form;  b) intricate, complex]





	a sinuous story

“You know, you seem to be making things much more difficult for yourself than necessary, Crawly,” Aziraphale said up toward the boughs of the tree in which Crawly had entwined himself. “Of course, that is to say that anything that hinders your, er, unholy wiles is a good thing, in my opinion!” he added dutifully. “But why don’t you take a human form occasionally? I should think that would be much easier than trying to sneak past Noah and stow away among the other snakes.”

Crawly sighed, insofar as a snake could sigh, and coiled himself further down the trunk to talk to Aziraphale more easily. “Can’t,” he said. “The demon in charge of handing out corporations Downstairs got jealous after Lucifer gave me the Eden job instead of her. And petty vengeance via bureaucracy is positively encouraged in Dagon’s department, so, completely coincidentally, she’s lost the paperwork for my human corporation for the past millennium or so. I don’t expect she’ll find it any time soon, either. Therefore, I am and shall be a ssssnake, crawling in the dirt, and so on, for the foresssseeable future.” Fortunately, his demonic abilities were up to the task of modifying the size of his snake form, which was handy for sneaking into places, but the job of changing his snake form into a human one was far too intricate for his miracle-ing skills to handle. He’d tried it numerous times and had nearly ended up discorporating himself when he got stuck on how the human heart worked vis-à-vis blood and all those long appendages humans had.

“Still, I don’t think that’s fair at all,” Aziraphale said, as though he had been personally offended. “Even though of course, as I mentioned, I certainly don’t want Hell to be any more efficient—“

“Yes, all right, nobody doubts your Goodnessss, angel,” said Crawly in something of a sulk.

“Well, anyway,” said Aziraphale. “I don't think it will be very nice down there with all those animals.”

With a pang of something he might admit was admiration, Crawly realized that Aziraphale was actually tempting himself: playing both the wile-er and the wile-ee. Naturally, Crawly decided to play along. “No, I don’t think it will,” he said. He had actually been planning to sleep the whole time, under the assumption that Noah would be too busy to attempt to count the number of snakes he had coiled up in his hold. “Ssseemss like an act of Charity would be in order. But, of course, I can’t expect that of the humans.” He tried to make his expression as pitiful as possible, although that was not very pitiful, due to the fact that he was currently a snake. For snakes, it was all in the body language.

All the same, Aziraphale huffed and then, extending an arm toward the tree, said, “Go ahead, then. Just until the floods subside.”

With a surprising amount of satisfaction, Crawly slithered off the tree and onto Aziraphale’s shoulders. (He was a smaller-sized snake at the moment, anyway, so he assumed he wouldn’t be too heavy for Aziraphale to carry.) Was this just the satisfaction of a temptation accomplished? In his heart of hearts, Crawly knew that it wasn’t; Crawly had hardly had to do anything. But it was satisfying, nonetheless, to be curled up warm around the angel as the rain started to fall. 

***

As the next few millennia rolled by, Crowley collected a number of functioning-as-a-snake strategies in his arsenal. The most important one was that, since Eve’s descendants had the benefit of knowing that snakes weren’t supposed to talk, he usually accomplished his temptations without interacting with people directly—perhaps making a lost earring gleam in the dust so beautifully that someone longed to keep it, or making a cart wheel break at the worst possible time so that someone would give in to Wrath.

His second strategy was miracle-ing himself _unnoticed_, which was not quite the same thing as invisible. It just meant that people didn’t really pay attention to the snake slithering between their feet or hitching a ride among their sacks of grain headed to the market.

His third strategy was miracle-ing small trees into existence whenever he needed somewhere to be that was out of the way.

But his fourth strategy was Aziraphale, who had become a more and more important factor as the humans became more and more fruitful and their streets more and more crowded. When too many horses, camels, and other beasts of burden were around, slithering along the ground at any point became completely untenable, and attempting to sneak around safely was incredibly onerous.

So it was that whenever Crowley ran into (“ran into”) Aziraphale in a city, Aziraphale began automatically making a pained face, extending his hand, and saying “very well,” or something similar, and then Crowley would ride along (miraculously unnoticed) on his shoulders or in his bags for as long as they were both in the same place. It was always the same game with Aziraphale; he would act annoyed or scornful, or call Crowley “demon,” but then when Crowley made to leave he would suddenly be all wounded looks and reproachful comments. Perhaps Aziraphale was just lonely, too, if not as desperate as Crowley. He seemed to particularly enjoy his “dinners” with Crowley, which usually involved Aziraphale both eating and talking while a warm and contented Crowley listened and very occasionally, if Aziraphale had managed to tempt away his dignity, carefully nibbled tidbits from Aziraphale’s hand.

Whatever it was that motivated the angel, though, there was no arguing that being with him was pleasant. When Crowley was living with Aziraphale in whatever his current lodgings were, Crowley would at least be free to move about without subterfuge; it was nice to twine himself around the back of a chair in a sunbeam without worrying that some mortal would burst into the room and start screaming. It was nice also that Aziraphale, regardless of whatever he said about demons, didn’t seem to have any aversion to touching Crowley. As the centuries went on, it became quite normal for Aziraphale to sit in a chair and put his feet up to read some piece of text while Crowley draped himself over Aziraphale’s person and, sometimes, listened to Aziraphale’s commentary on what he was reading. Crowley, unable to read written text himself due to several aspects of inhabiting a serpentine body, certainly did appreciate bards, poets, and oral storytellers and missed them very much when they gradually faded away from Europe.

During these periods of co-habitation, Aziraphale would more or less turn a blind eye to any wiles Crowley was attempting, just as Crowley forbore from interfering with Aziraphale’s Heavenly work—but, then, Crowley had to admit that he was not trying very hard to be wily. For a few centuries, Crowley had been honest in his reports and then added passive-aggressive addenda explaining how difficult it was to tempt people when you were a snake (to say nothing of the fact that he had no hands with which to write his reports and had to miracle them instead), but nothing ever came of those, to the point that Crowley became fairly convinced that nobody was reading his reports at all. At that juncture, Crowley decided to focus on evilly Violating the Eighth Commandment: to wit, lying.

By the time that Henry VIII started pillaging all of England’s monasteries and evicting the monks (including, at the time, Aziraphale), causing Aziraphale to move to London, Crowley could hardly remember the last time that they had been apart. Crowley had grown used to riding around on Aziraphale’s shoulders all the time, usually in a smaller form and partly concealed under a small cloak or cowl, and often making small sarcastic comments in Aziraphale’s ear. In response, the angel would pleasingly huff or blush or, in his usual way, make utterly insincere protestations about how rude or wicked Crowley was being. (Mobile phones, when they finally appeared, were immensely helpful in this respect because Aziraphale was able to pretend to use one in order to not seem as though he was talking to himself.)

Perhaps Crowley should have thought that this humble lifestyle was beneath him as the Serpent of Eden, but he never felt that Aziraphale treated him like a pet. If anything, it was more and more as though Crowley and Aziraphale were one being; although Aziraphale was the ambulatory one of their pairing, Aziraphale never lorded it over Crowley or made him feel helpless, and Aziraphale generally agreed to go anywhere that Crowley wanted to go, with only a token display of “get thee behind me, foul fiend”-ing occasionally involved. When the age of the automobile arrived, Aziraphale even agreed (eventually) to purchasing a car thanks to Crowley’s arguments/temptations that it would allow a) less getting wet in the rain, b) a lower likelihood of getting books wet in the rain, and c) fewer frivolous miracles involving cabs.

All in all, it was a good life. Crowley had little doubt it was a much better fate than any other demon had met. He could curl up with Aziraphale on the sofa, listen to Mozart or watch TV, drive around with Aziraphale (which was almost as good as flying, if you went fast enough—which Aziraphale almost never did), spend his evenings chatting with Aziraphale while the angel ate and drank and got warm and sleepy, fall asleep with Aziraphale. (Oh, it had taken Crowley a long time to tempt Aziraphale into sleeping, but once he had gotten a taste of it, all warm and snug in his bed with the rain pattering on the window outside, of course he had loved it as much as he loved eating, drinking, music, and so many other mortal pleasures.) Some Good part of Crowley that he preferred to ignore even whispered that perhaps it was a blessing that Crowley had been stuck in his serpent’s form, that Hell would have expected more of him and Aziraphale would not have been so moved by kindness to help him if he had had a human shape.

Oh, but if he had a human shape . . .

Aziraphale had only ever known Crowley as a snake. In a way, Crowley had mostly only known _himself _as a snake; he didn’t remember his time in Heaven, and he barely remembered his time in Hell as a recently fallen angel because it was so long ago and so awful that even then he had actively tried _not _to fix it in his memory. If he had known he’d have to go so long with only a snake’s form, perhaps he would have tried harder to remember what it was like to have hands, and feet, and to be able to smile.

If Crowley could wear a human form to be with Aziraphale, what would he do then? To Crowley’s utter shame, he had spent many centuries’ warm afternoons fantasizing about what it would be like to simply sit in a chair across a table from Aziraphale in a restaurant and have dinner with him properly, as two equally participating people. He had imagined himself sitting next to Aziraphale on a park bench and feeding the ducks with him as two men having a conversation instead of one man with a large scarf. Crowley had even, in his deepest heart of snakey hearts, dreamed about holding Aziraphale’s hand with a human hand instead of with coils of snake. He had no memories of ever having held anyone’s hand. As for anything involving kissing, Crowley would avow to the end of his days that he had never thought about it, but he had become very emotional when watching the film _Ghost_, so much so that Aziraphale actually became concerned for his health and came close to calling the hated veterinarian.

But, still. Was Crowley content? Was it possible for a demon to be content? At least it was possible to say that he hated the idea of any change to his established lifestyle with Aziraphale. By the year 2019, they had lived in London together for centuries and, in Crowley’s opinion, perfected the routine of their life together. Although the fear of being discovered by their respective sides was always vaguely present in both of their minds, it seemed unlikely that they would ever be caught by any outside spectator because a) they had been doing it for so long already without getting caught, b) Crowley was always more or less invisible when they went outside, and c) his demonic acts were, if he was going to be entirely honest, so minimal that any tinge of evil that he left in the bookshop was drowned out by the general miasma of evil present in any large city.

So it was a horrible revelation when Crowley, who had been enjoying a re-run of _Last of the Summer Wine_, raised his head from the back of the sofa in the bookshop's back room, tasted the air, and said, “Something’s changed.” And then, realizing what had actually changed, he tumbled down onto the seats of the sofa in shock.

Aziraphale, who had been sitting on the sofa and reading with the last curl of Crowley’s body draped over his shoulders, immediately leapt up and started to fuss over him. “Crowley! What on earth is the matter? Are you all right?”

“Angel,” Crowley said, deeply shaken. “It’s Armageddon. It’s just begun.”

Aziraphale petted one of Crowley’s coils blankly and let the demon twist his way up his arm. “Are you certain? You mean the actual End Times? I haven’t had any memos from head office. I mean, it can hardly . . . it’s not time yet, surely!”

Crowley mustered enough control to not tell his friend that Upstairs treated him like shit and always had and instead said, “I’m not surprised neither of our sides bothered to tell us. It’s not like our opinion matters, does it?” When the angel gave a little squeak, he realized he was squeezing too tightly out of anxiety and immediately released a little. “Sorry, angel.”

“I can’t blame you at all, my dear,” said Aziraphale, brow furrowed in distress. “Are you—are you absolutely certain?”

“Yes,” said Crowley. “The Antichrist must have been on earth already. On his eleventh birthday, a hellhound is supposed to come to him, and when he names the hound—that’s when Armageddon begins. That’s what just happened. I could taste it. He named the hellhound.”

“Oh, lord,” said Aziraphale, and then he covered his mouth.

Crowley’s first instinct was to grab on even more tightly to the life that he and Aziraphale had made. Surely there was something they could do before their lovely world ended. But there wasn’t, was there? It was too late. If there was anything to be done, it would have been eleven years ago. But obviously Heaven and Hell hadn’t bothered to notify either of them.

All Crowley could do was nestle his head into Aziraphale’s neck, and then Aziraphale was stroking him gently and saying, “Oh, Crowley,” in an unsteady voice.

***

The first real argument that they had had in hundreds of years happened later that day, when Crowley begged Aziraphale to run away with him to Alpha Centauri and Aziraphale instead insisted on calling Heaven directly and pleading for Earth. Crowley, who had hoped Aziraphale was not still so naïve, eventually slithered up to their bedroom in a snit (and also in order to be not-visible while the Heavenly portal was open).

So Crowley wasn’t present when Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell burst his way into the shop, and when he heard the voices from below he was too slow in wriggling free of their bedsheets and slithering down the stairs to prevent what happened next: Shadwell’s advancing steps, and Aziraphale’s subsequent discorporation. By the time that Crowley arrived on the ground floor, the Heavenly portal had closed itself and Shadwell was standing there alone in the shop, pointing at nothing. 

“_You_,” said Crowley, becoming the largest anaconda he possibly could. “_What did you do to him?”_

The old man, growing pale, muttered something about familiars and pointed his shaking finger at the looming snake for a moment before turning tail and scrambling out of the shop as quickly as he could.

Crowley could very easily have slithered out of the shop, become venomous, and bitten the old man. Or he could have miracled a bus to hit him, or miracled his heart to stop. Crowley _wanted _to want to do these things, wanted to be Wrathful and vengeful and hateful. But he couldn’t feel it, because nothing that he did to the grubby old man would bring his angel back from Heaven now, and he knew that the very last words he’d exchanged with Aziraphale had been in an argument, something about how stupid Aziraphale was. The last thing he’d ever said to Aziraphale was that he was stupid.

Crowley didn’t have the benefits of a human body in dealing with the small fire that one of Aziraphale’s candles had created in the bookshop. But he did have the power of demonic miracles, and it was as easy as a thought for him to miracle the fire out, leaving only a few small scorch marks on the floor. Even if Aziraphale was gone, he had loved the bookshop, and Crowley couldn’t bear to think of it being harmed.

Then he curled up in the last place his angel had stood and waited for the world to end. Despair, in the Middle Ages, had been considered the worst sin of all because it was defined by a complete lack of hope, which meant lack of faith in God. Crowley had always thought that was especially unfair. At least the Seven Deadly Sins were all enjoyable or satisfying in some way. Despair, on the other hand, was the very essence of Hell, and now Crowley gave himself up to it.

***

“Excuse me,” Aziraphale said, in a tone of voice that Crowley knew very well indicated an internal conflict between “all-loving angel” and “tetchy shopkeeper.” “Are you quite all right?”

Crowley’s first thought was something along the lines of _who’s annoying my angel_? 

His second thought was—

“Aziraphale!” Crowley said, sitting up abruptly. He felt very unwell. His body didn’t feel as it should, and it vaguely hurt in parts, and he wasn’t sure how long he had been . . . on the floor?

But there was Aziraphale, in his usual corporation, leaning over to peer at Crowley. He looked perfectly normal, except for the disconcerted look on his face and except for the fact that he didn’t smell like Aziraphale’s human scent. But he did feel like Aziraphale's usual holy essence, so it undoubtedly was Aziraphale.

“What’s going on?” was all that Crowley could manage. His face felt wrong too.

Aziraphale stared even harder at Crowley, then abruptly sort of sat down on the floor next to Crowley. “Crowley?” he said faintly.

It was starting to come back now: Aziraphale had been discorporated, an old man had been involved somehow and had run away, the apocalypse had been nigh, Crowley had curled up on the floor and waited for it to come. Had Crowley fallen asleep or been . . . attacked? He felt . . . was this what the humans called _queasy_? “You’re back,” Crowley said, vaguely aware that his vision was blurring, and then: “Don’t feel well.” Instinctively, he reached for Aziraphale, but nothing seemed to be working as it was supposed to, and instead he felt himself start to keel over until Aziraphale wrapped his arms around him.

“Oh, my dear Crowley,” Aziraphale was saying, and putting his arms around Crowley, which was very nice. He decided to close his eyes, which felt much better, and just enjoyed the sensation for a bit.

“’m sorry,” Crowley said into Aziraphale’s shoulder. “You’re not stupid. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Aziraphale said, as though it had happened centuries ago. He was petting Crowley’s head, which was always lovely, although it felt especially lovely now, when Crowley had just been mourning for Aziraphale’s loss. “Crowley, do you remember what happened?”

“You got discorporated,” Crowley said, unable to entirely keep his voice from wobbling. “Old man came in and then left. How did you come back?”

“Oh, well,” said Aziraphale. “I was in Heaven, and I managed to find out where Armageddon was actually supposed to begin—it wasn’t in Megiddo, it was here in England, in Oxfordshire, in fact. Gabriel really could have mentioned it! Well, at any rate, I—um, actually, I possessed a very nice lady named Tracey, and then we both went to the air base where everything was happening, and then the Antichrist decided that he didn’t want to be the Antichrist any more, and so he wasn’t, and there was no Armageddon after all. And then he looked at Madame Tracey and myself and sort of pulled me out and put me back in a corporation, and here I am!” He sounded as though he was verging on hysteria. “And here you are. Do you know what happened to you? I wonder if it was the Antichrist again.”

Crowley had a slightly difficult time keeping up with all of this, but he knew enough to say, “I dunno, I just woke up here.” He still didn’t feel right at all, and his body did ache a little here and there. It wasn’t so bad as long as he kept his eyes closed, but—

He hadn’t closed his eyes in six thousand years.

It was sort of like switching to a different language—switching to an old way of thinking about himself, of thinking about distinct things like _hands _and _feet _and _neck _instead of a sinuous continuity of self. But, hesitantly, Crowley opened his eyes, and beyond the bit of Aziraphale’s bow tie that was in his vision he could see a hand—his hand, his own hand—as he lifted it. It was skinny, long-fingered, pale, and entirely human.

Crowley pulled back from Aziraphale a little—just a little, he couldn’t give up that warm support or the arm around his back—and there they were: legs, his own legs, wearing jeans! He could feel when he touched them that they were his. He had never even imagined what kind of clothes he would wear, but there they were: black jeans. Were those snakeskin boots? Really?

“I’m human,” Crowley found himself saying, rather stupidly.

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, reaching out to hold his hand, and oh—there it was. Aziraphale’s hand was so very soft. Crowley’s vision blurred again. Was he crying? Was that what this was?

“I think you’re still a demon, in a human corporation,” Aziraphale was saying. “Which I’m _very _glad of, since human lives are so short and it seems we still have so much time left.”

The thought of having time left, of having Aziraphale when he thought he had lost him forever, made Crowley’s heart feel so full that he could hardly stand it. “Let’s go to lunch,” Crowley said urgently. He’d already achieved hand-holding, and that one taste of his fantasies had been enough to make him greedy forever. “Let’s go to the Ritz, angel, and celebrate. What time is it?”

“It’s a little after three o’clock in the morning. I came back as quickly as I could,” said Aziraphale, as he let Crowley’s hand go—oh, how awful—except that he had only done it so that he could rub his thumb tenderly over Crowley’s cheek, clearing the wetness away. “Would you like to go to breakfast? We could have champagne with breakfast at the Ritz. We could tell them it’s your birthday," he said, beaming.

“Yeah,” said Crowley. “Let’s do that.” Crowley had the sense that the people at the Ritz felt a little sorry for Aziraphale, thinking of him as a funny middle-aged man who always dined alone. He wanted them to know that Aziraphale wasn’t alone, and that he was loved.

Crowley would have been perfectly happy to remain sitting entwined on the floor with Aziraphale until breakfast-time, but Aziraphale seemed to think that it would be good if he got used to moving about a bit, so Crowley let Aziraphale help him to his feet. They were the same height, it seemed; that was a pleasant change, being just the same in this way rather than vastly different in shape and size. It did feel a little strange and unstable, standing so tall with knees and hips that still felt a little unwieldy, but Aziraphale seemed quite happy to keep his arm around Crowley’s back for stability, and Crowley was quite happy with that too.

“My goodness, you hardly weigh anything,” Aziraphale said, as they made their way to the sofa in the back room. “You know, I pictured you all sorts of different ways, my dear, but never with red hair.”

“I have red hair?” said Crowley, still a little overwhelmed, and then: “You pictured me?”

“Well, of course,” Aziraphale said, gently easing him onto the sofa. “There you go.” He smiled down at Crowley. “Would you—would you like a cup of tea, perhaps? Or cocoa?”

“I’ve never had tea,” Crowley said, feeling rather strange and alien in this world that, he was now realizing, he hadn’t experienced much of. “Um. I could try it.” And Aziraphale probably needed something for his own nerves, too. Somewhat late, Crowley realized that Aziraphale had quite an exhausting day behind him.

“Right! Coming up,” said Aziraphale, and disappeared off into the downstairs kitchenette.

In the meantime, Crowley stuck out his hand, and, as he’d intended, a little hand mirror appeared in it. With some trepidation, he brought it to his face.

Oh. Well, that explained why Aziraphale was so certain that Crowley was still a demon. His eyes still looked entirely snake-like. That was a bit of a disappointment, but the surge of joy from having hands at all to hold a mirror was still so overwhelming that Crowley could hardly feel the disappointment. As Aziraphale had said, he did indeed have bright red hair, and quite a lot of it, in a relatively short haircut with a lot of chaos around the top. That, he liked; it was kind of cool. Most importantly, he seemed to be visually about Aziraphale’s age, which really pleased him. Humans rarely associated with humans of different ages unless they were related, so this would make it easier for them to be around one another. Other than that, it was hard to look at the face in the mirror and have any strong opinions of it. He had wished for so long to have a human corporation that having any sort of face seemed like a luxury. He tried raising his eyebrows, smiling at himself, and sticking his tongue out. Oh, not forked. 

“What do you think?” said Aziraphale from the doorway, with a cup of cocoa in one hand (Crowley could smell the familiar chocolate scent) and a cup of milky tea.

Caught out, Crowley put the mirror down on the coffee table and said, “’s all right, I guess.” He cleared his throat. “What do you think?”

“I think it suits you very well, Crowley,” he said, with that bashful smile of his. “I like it very much.” He came over and sat next to Crowley. “Do you think you can manage the cup? I filled it only partly, in case your hands are still a little wobbly.”

With great care, Crowley took the mug and sipped from it, intent on not spilling it down the daringly low-cut t-shirt that he was apparently wearing. Having a human body was turning out to be more crushingly embarrassing than he had imagined. As for the tea, it was warm, and . . . he didn’t actually have much to compare it to. He didn’t dislike it, but he also didn’t immediately see why so many people loved it.

“Do you suppose you’ll miss being a snake, at all?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley really did almost spill his tea. “What? Miss being a snake? Having no hands? Really?”

“Well,” Aziraphale said primly. “We spent a lot of time here on this sofa, didn’t we?”

Where was Aziraphale going with this? “We still can, can’t we?” Crowley said, with a touch of worry.

“Of course,” Aziraphale said. “I just meant that it won’t be quite the same.”

“I won’t be able to lie on your shoulders any more,” Crowley said. Did Aziraphale actually like him better as a snake? That would be absolutely devastating.

“Well, exactly,” said Aziraphale, explaining nothing.

An unpleasant sensation began on Crowley’s face; subtly putting his hand to one cheek, he began to suspect that this was what humans called a _blush_. “I could put my arm there instead,” he said, all in a rush.

Aziraphale perked up and then leaned forward slightly; obviously, this was exactly what he had meant. Thank goodness Crowley had had six thousand years of interpreting Aziraphale’s hints, he thought with an overwhelming sense of affection and also annoyance, or they would never get anywhere.

With care, Crowley slid his arm behind Aziraphale’s shoulders, and Aziraphale immediately snuggled into Crowley’s chest in a way that leapfrogged past several preliminary stages of Crowley’s fantasies. Yes, this was perfect. This was it, exactly what Crowley had wanted for so long. “Long night, angel?” he said softly. Fearful of spilling, he carefully put down his own mug on the end table by the sofa.

“Terribly long,” said Aziraphale. He had already finished his cocoa—as Crowley had thought, he had needed it badly to soothe a weary mind—and Crowley took the empty mug from him and put it on the end table as well. “I was awfully worried about you, Crowley. I didn’t know what you’d do, after I’d been discorporated. I, er, I borrowed a Jeep from the American air base and drove it all the way back to London.”

That meant a lot, coming from Aziraphale. The, in actual fact, theft, but also the driving, since Aziraphale hated it. “If you want to nap, I’ll wake you in time for breakfast,” Crowley said.

“You tempter, you,” said Aziraphale, showing no signs of moving. “I know you; you’ll wake up three days from now.” He reached out and interlaced the fingers of Crowley’s free hand with his own. “I missed you terribly, Crowley, when I thought I’d never see you again. I’m sure Heaven isn’t pleased with me for running off, but do you know what? I’m glad I did it. I missed you. And we have so much more to do now. We could go all over the world. We could try every restaurant in London.” Aziraphale sat up abruptly, almost banging his head on Crowley’s chin. “Oh! I could teach you to dance.”

“Yes,” said Crowley, feeling almost breathless with love. “All of it. Anything you want, angel.”

“Anything?” said Aziraphale, looking fully awake again, but hesitant. It was such a pleasure to look again at his face; even if this was only Aziraphale’s corporation, just a covering for his real self in the same way that his favorite waistcoat was, it was still a very familiar covering, and it was beautiful to Crowley just because he had associated it with Aziraphale for so many millennia. That was Aziraphale’s spirit showing through, too, in the bright and perceptive look in his eyes, the tenderness of his expression. 

“Anything,” said Crowley. He swallowed. “Aziraphale, we’re assuming the Antichrist did this to me, but we really have no idea how it happened. For all we know, maybe it'll only last for a day. So if there’s something you want, just ask me. Anything at all. It could be the Apocalypse again tomorrow.” That had been a hard-earned lesson from the past twenty-four hours.

He might have had more to say, but the touch of Aziraphale’s hand on his cheek stopped him, and then, with a very serious expression, Aziraphale kissed him. For a few moments—minutes? hours?—Crowley’s mind was a blur, until Aziraphale pulled back and then said, nervously, “Say something, Crowley.”

“Oh, for—someone’s sake,” Crowley said, and he wrapped himself around Aziraphale as thoroughly as he could with only arms, and not coils, and kissed the angel again.

Outside the bookshop, London came to life. Crowds thronged, traffic honked, and sunlight even endeavored to pour in through the shop’s less-than-clean windows.

Three days later, Crowley awoke, entwined with a dreaming angel and more than relieved to find himself still in the same human corporation, and he took Aziraphale for their first, but not last, five-course lunch at the Ritz. And they had champagne, and told the people at the Ritz that it was Crowley's birthday—which, in a way, it was.

**Author's Note:**

> surprise
> 
> hello to everyone who recognizes me from other fandoms. i recognize you too! this is a fun train we're all on
> 
> as always, if you like this fic, I would love it if you left a comment
> 
> and if you happen to see this fic recced anywhere, i would love it if you linked me to the rec in one of the comments


End file.
